It pays to be selfish. Ask multiples more
than you deserve—it’s the only thing
worth asking anyone for. Any less is just
your honest wages, a pittance or a punishment,
and God gets tired of meting out what’s fair: he
likes a good struggle, is deep down spoiling
for a fight.
How else would you explain the night
I spent willing the sky to stop whirling, clutching each
sensation like a saving ledge? I could hear
my brother closing in, taste doom in the stop
of my own name. Each star-point’s brightness
taunted my dustbound flesh, haloed my nothingness
against the thickening black, and still I felt even
to prolong pain would be a gift. He heard my cry
and, answering, wrenched my bones.
Years ago in a different darkness, I couldn’t tell one
sister from another; small wonder this time
I missed the pull equal with push, the press of joints
devoid of hatred as of lust, the something not
quite mortal in the touch,
but once it dawned, I was
the one who wouldn’t let go. This prayer pinned
the Maker to his earth; listen, it goes like this:
No. Stay, bless me first.